


I Know You Didn't Ask, But...

by ama



Category: Justified
Genre: Coming Out, Father Figures, Friendship, Gay Male Character, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6319282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rachel, you know, she’s the eldest, my heir and golden girl. Every once in awhile we have a nice little heart to heart about responsibilities and such. Raylan’s the youngest—”<br/>“Spoiled rotten.”<br/>“Always causing trouble. Mmhm. And that leaves you…”<br/>“The dreaded middle child?” Tim chuckled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You Didn't Ask, But...

**Author's Note:**

> Coming out narratives are near and dear to my heart, especially with a character like Tim. This is short but I wanted to give my take. Set vaguely in the first two seasons somewhere. Also there's a throaway line to "Susan," who is the FBI agent tailing Sammy Tonin in season three; I'm not sure if she's meant to be Tim's friend in the FBI but I thought sure, why not.
> 
> (content warning for references to homophobic violence and slurs)

“Got a sec?” Tim asked, tapping on the frame of the door, and Art paused in the middle of slinging his coat over his shoulder with a dramatic sigh.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Sorry to be a burden. Won’t take a minute.”

The office was slowly emptying out—marshals doing their best not to sprint so as not to appear unseemly. Tim had waited for Rachel to leave because she was just too damn observant; Raylan had snuck out two hours earlier, possibly to do legitimate work, possibly for a cowboy mission in Harlan, possibly to have his way with a pint of ice cream and a bottle of liquor, who knew. Tim sat down in the chair across from Art’s desk and tried to avoid the instinct to look over his shoulder and see if anyone was watching. Art, too, sat down.

“Spose I owe it to you. I was talking to Leslie the other day about my troubles—”

“Oh you got troubles?” Tim smirked.

“More’n you could dream of. Anyway, she pointed out to me that me running this office seems more like raising kids than making sure grown-ass adults don’t shoot each other. Always dealing with your squabbles and everything. Half your problems you all need me and only me to solve, and the other half you don’t want me to know about and those are even worse. Anyway, I was thinking it over and realized how well it fits. Rachel, you know, she’s the eldest, my heir and golden girl. Every once in awhile we have a nice little heart to heart about responsibilities and such. Raylan’s the youngest—”

“Spoiled rotten.”

“Always causing trouble. Mmhm. And that leaves you…”

“The dreaded middle child?” Tim chuckled.

“Exactly. Poor kid. Always overlooked and forgotten, unless we need someone to put a bullet in a brain from an improbable distance. So if you need some sage advice or even a bourbon, I suppose I could indulge just this once.”

“Don’t know about advice.” Tim was startled to realize that his heart was pounding, and he nervously ran his palms over his thighs and took a breath to steady himself. “Actually—I wouldn’t say no to a drink.”

“Thought this wouldn’t take a minute,” Art mocked, but with very little persuasion he took two glasses and a bottle out of his desk.

“Hey, you offered.”

Art poured them each a glass and pushed one over towards Tim, and returned the bottle to its place.

“Nothing’s chasing me out, anyway,” he said. He took a sip and let out a short, appreciative sigh. “Leslie’s out of town. I made a date with some leftover Italian food and a _Deadliest Catch_ marathon.”

“I’ll keep it quick anyways. You had a long, hard day of sitting at your desk, so I understand why getting home to sit on your couch is a top priority.”

Art snorted.

“Say your piece, jackass.”

“It’s about the other day. The barbecue thing you were telling us about.”

“Are you still coming?”

“Yeah, I think so. It’s that when you invited me you said I could bring a girlfriend if I wanted, and I just got to thinking maybe I should tell you that I’m gay.”

There was a pause. An uncomfortable pause, or a startled pause, maybe. Tim’s heart was in his throat, and he reprimanded himself because it was stupid, he was a goddamn Ranger and a marshal and a grown man besides, and there was jack shit to be afraid of. He gulped at his bourbon and looked up. Art’s face was almost perfectly blank—polite, like. He was trying not to look too surprised, but he couldn’t hide it. Jesus, this was awkward.

Tim felt steady heat in his cheeks. Art cleared his throat and scratched at his ear, and looked up with a half-smile.

“Well then. Okay. Thanks for letting me know, and I guess I’m sorry for assuming.”

“It’s not—you don’t have to apologize or nothing. I know, I don’t talk about my personal life. I never got Don’t Ask Don’t Tell out of my system, not sure if I ever really will. But I didn’t want to feel like I was hiding anything from you. You’ve been good to us here, so.”

He gestured with his glass, indicating the office in a vague kind of way, and the bourbon sloshed. He took a hasty sip and looked at the ground. When he looked up, Art was smiling with a little more ease. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head.

“I have been an excellent father figure to all three of my charges, yes,” he said in a lofty voice, and Tim chuckled.

“You’re forgetting Nelson.”

“Well never mind Nelson for now. Damn, Leslie’s metaphor is getting better and better all the time, ain’t it?”

“Aw, come on, Art.”

“No no, don’t deny it. Coming out to your boss, it’s supposed to be, I dunno, putting a picture of your boyfriend on your desk, or else suing him for something, not coming up to my office afterhours looking like a jumpy bunny.” Tim made an affronted noise, but Art plowed on. “This is how you come out to parents and such, admit it.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tim said. His lips twitched in maybe a smile, and he took another sip from his bourbon and held it in both hands, relief seeping into his limbs. Sympathy flashed across Art’s face.

“I forgot, you were just a kid when your father died, weren’t you? Did you ever…?”

“What, come out to my dad?” Art nodded, and Tim thought for a moment. “Well… not really. When I was sixteen, I uh, I started having an inkling. Didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how I should think. One day I went to the Borders down the road, looking for the next book in a series about King Arthur, I think it was, and there was a book there about gay teenagers. So I bought it. Actually,” he laughed. “I stole it. Jesus Christ, I was so fucking scared, I didn’t want anybody to see me holding it, let alone buying it. I went home and read the whole thing, and hid it under my mattress.”

He trailed off for a moment, and swallowed.

“He must’ve been looking through my things for a long time,” he mumbled. “Only I didn’t know it. Anyway, my dad found the book a few days later. He confronted me, asked me if I was queer—and God I was so tongue-tied, I barely knew how to speak. All I could say was ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ So he beat me within ’bout an inch of my life, and said he hoped that taught me the right answer. I was a scrawny kid back then, man, and usually he didn’t beat me, anyways, except, you know, a smack up on the head or a twisted arm every once in awhile. Standard Kentucky fare, nothing that could prepare me for that kind of ass whooping. I was black and blue all over for a week, and yellow for two after that. That’s about the time I decided I wanted to join the Army the minute I turned eighteen, and when that recruiter told me I could be a sniper and keep 2000 feet away from all those big scary men with guns and fists, and my mind was made up.”

Art cleared his throat again, and Tim looked at him with a wry grin.

“Shit, chief, you asked,” he pointed out. He knocked back what was left in his glass and set it on the desk with a heavy thunk.

“I did. I wasn’t fishing for anything.”

“Was that a _Deadliest Catch_ pun?”

“It wasn’t, but it’s a good one, huh?” Art chuckled. He, too, drained his glass. “Your dad sounds like a sonufabitch. Sorry about that. If you want to talk some more—”

“I’ve got Rachel.”

“I was going to say Raylan, actually.”

Tim’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline.

“You were going to tell me to talk to Raylan Givens about my feelings?”

Art smirked.

“Could be good for both of you. Or you could at least compare notes.” He set his glass down next to Tim’s. “Take those over to the kitchen on your way out, wouldja? Unless you’ve got some other soul-searching to do.”

“No, I think I’ve met my quota for the next half-decade.”

Tim stood and headed toward the door before Art stopped him.

“Oh, by the way, about that barbecue—if you wanted to bring a, uh… a boyfriend or--”

“I would not,” Tim said plainly. He leaned against the door and grinned. “Besides, I don’t have anyone on the hook at the moment.”

Art chuckled.

“That’s a good one. All right, then, guess we’ll… you know what, fuck it, come here.”

“Oh, no, Art,” Tim groaned, but Art continued to hold his arms out.

“C’mon, Gutterson, you get on over here. The sooner it happens, the sooner it’s over.”

Tim imagined the look he flashed Art was the same he used to give his babysitter when he was about four years old, but reluctantly he walked back into the room and allowed his chief to give him a hug. He sighed heavily and wrapped his arm around Art’s shoulders in return—and pretended not to notice the way his heart rate slowed to its usual even thump, or the way his nerves began to settle. They were absolutely _not_ having a moment, he was definitely not thinking morosely about his relationship with his actual dad, and Leslie’s metaphor was crap.

At the same time… it had felt good to tell Art. Tim had been caught off guard when his last boyfriend had referred to him as ‘closeted,’ because in his opinion he did jack shit to hide anything, but the more he thought about it the more it was sort of true. He had a few cousins, but most of them lived out of state, and they didn’t really know each other well enough for him to consider having a heart-to-heart. He had told three or four of his Ranger buddies, once he had been discharged, but the rest… well, he knew what they would think, and it was just more comfortable to not deal with any of that, not when he didn’t even have a serious boyfriend in the picture so it wasn’t all that relevant. He had told Rachel, and Susan, and occasionally mentioned it in passing to some acquaintances. That was it. He still wouldn’t call it hiding, but sometimes it did feel awful lonely. Coming out to Art—that felt sincere, and right, and a little bit like relief.

(He appreciated that, when they finally pulled away, Art also pretended not to notice that Tim hadn’t initiated the split.)


End file.
